Knowledge Base > Fran Costigan - Real Talk on Recipe Testing

Real Talk on Recipe Testing

Fran Costigan - Real Talk on Recipe Testing

This event was on Tuesday, May 14, 2024 at 4:00 pm Pacific, 4:00 pm Eastern

What steps are necessary to develop and deliver recipes that consistently yield successful and reproducible results for your audience, whether that is family, friends, followers, cli… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

Is it possible to use solidified extra virgin olive oil in the place of solid fats such as nut butters and coconut butter?

— Cathy Chapman

Answer:

I don't use much coconut butter. And um, I love that question about the extra virgin olive oil in the freezer because the pie dough in essential vegan desserts is made with oil, not with vegan butter. And I chose that because I think you learn a lot more than you would by just replacing Gary butter with vegan butter. So you, when you're making pie dough, everything has to be cold, especially the fat. And um, in my refrigerator, the two oils that I use to make vegan baked goods are extra virgin olive oil. I use a mild tasting one when I don't want the flavor of the olive oil. I use a spicier greener one in an olive oil cake, for example. And I use sunflower oil, which I think tastes almost buttery. So I have containers of both in the refrigerator that's behind me. The extra virgin olive oil gets solid, the sunflower oil stays liquid, it just gets cold. But when, so when I first noticed that, and that was quite some time ago, I thought, oh, well I'll just use the solidified extra virgin olive oil to cut it in the way I would with a solid fat. And it doesn't work. It starts melting. So yeah, you can do that. I have actually, it's unusual to hear somebody wanna use extra virgin olive oil in place of peanut butters and coconut butter. Um, I don't think, I think the solidified olive oil is going to melt and not do what the coconut butter does. But if you're gonna set it, then it, you know, set it later, it might.
Fran Costigan

Fran Costigan

Director of Vegan Pastry

FranCostigan.com